


all the bad dreams that you hide

by bettycooopers



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: F/M, Nightmares, PTSD, Post 5x04, in a booth at pops, roommates au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-18
Updated: 2021-02-18
Packaged: 2021-03-13 07:14:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,708
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29522793
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bettycooopers/pseuds/bettycooopers
Summary: Betty has control of the nightmares. At least, that's what she tells herself.
Relationships: Archie Andrews/Betty Cooper
Comments: 5
Kudos: 101





	all the bad dreams that you hide

**Author's Note:**

> this is just a little thought i had post 5x04...in which ptsd nightmares are abundant, and barchie are roommates. here's hoping we all make it through tonight to see if i'm right 😂
> 
> thank you thank you thank you to my best bud, [becca](https://archiveofourown.org/users/packedyoursaturday), for knowing i was going to write this before i even did.

Betty has control of the nightmares. 

That’s what she tells herself, anyway – that’s what she tells her FBI appointed therapist, when the woman calls her out for lying and claiming she isn’t having them. She doesn’t want to talk about how it feels to dream about being surrounded by disembodied limbs, to feel like she’s trapped in a smaller and smaller hole underground. There’s no reason to discuss it, because the answer is simply that it feels  _ shitty,  _ and what is she going to gain from saying that out loud? 

Of course it feels shitty to know she made a mistake and it cost someone their life. It’s not like it’s the first time in her own life she’s felt that way, though – she’s handled it before, she can handle it now.

In an interesting turn of events, though, being back in Riverdale somehow makes the nightmares worse. 

She’s fine at Pop’s, seeing her friends (would she still call  _ all  _ of them her friends? She’s not sure, that’s a conversation for another day,) and talking with them about their newfound plan to Save The Town – Archie’s plan, really, but she helps him flesh it out a bit. They wind up being the last two in the booth, and she’s felt Archie’s foot brush against hers a few times. It’s a mistake, she’s sure – but it feels nice, either way. 

“I’m sure you want to get some rest,” she says, lifting her coffee cup and draining what remains slowly before setting it down on the saucer. Archie, as if on cue, yawns and then smiles softly, his cheeks a bit flushed. He lifts his own cup, taking a slow sip as he nods. “Do you need a ride?”

“It’s walkable,” he shakes his head. “I’m staying at the El Royale, for now.”

Betty squints at him. She’d seen the state of the Andrews house, earlier, when she’d dropped her stuff off and hugged her mother quickly – but she hadn’t imagined Archie would be quite so displaced, even without the house. “Like, the gym?”

Archie laughs, nodding. “I have a little makeshift room in the office,” he looks up at her with a shrug. “It’s fine, for now.”

“No,” Betty frowns, shaking her head. “No, it’s not – you’ll come stay with us.”

“Betty, that’s-,” Archie starts, and Betty holds up her hand, grabbing her phone off the table. She texts her mom quickly,  _ ‘Archie’s staying with us, I’ll explain later.’  _ and then looks up at him, a smile on her lips.

“Done,” she laughs, pressing her lips together. “And now Alice Smith knows, so...you’ll be hard pressed to fight  _ both  _ of us.” Archie lets out a low laugh, leaning back against the vinyl. 

“You’re still something else, Betty Cooper,” he chuckles, shaking his head. “But thank you, yeah. I...I wasn’t sure…,” he stretches his arms upwards and Betty watches as his muscles flex beneath his shirt. His eyes are closed, so she doesn’t bother trying not to stare. “I wasn’t sure what my next move was, honestly. That cot’s been really shitty on my back.”

“Wow, grandpa,” Betty deadpans, tearing her eyes off Archie’s  _ everything  _ and watching as he grabs the bill fold from the edge of the table. She purses her lips, narrowing her eyes at him as he stuffs some cash into the holder and keeps it beneath his hand, knowing she’ll try to take it if he lets go. “Really sounds like time has changed you.”

Archie laughs, frowning at her. “I mean,” he shrugs. “I’m not the one who has a  _ cat,  _ Betty.”

Betty laughs, letting out a faux scoff. “Don’t you dare talk about Toffee like that,” she frowns, shooting him a glare as he slides out of the booth and heads up towards the register. “She’s not going to like you if you’re mean about her,” she calls, and Archie grins at her over his shoulder. 

“I think I can win over a  _ cat,  _ Betts.”

–

She’s fine while they’re in the car, laughing at the way Archie’s knees hit the glove compartment of her small sedan even with the passenger seat pushed all the way back. “Y’know, I can’t tell,” he laughs, turning his head towards her, “whether this makes me feel like I’m really tall, or like your car is...miniature.” Even though she’s looking at the road ahead of them, she can feel his eyes on her. She wills her neck not to go red, even though she knows it is. 

“Well, you’re not  _ that  _ tall, Arch,” Betty reaches over, pinching his arm and laughing as he tugs it away. “Besides, my car’s not  _ miniature... _ it’s compact.”

“It’s a clown car,” Archie grins, reaching over across her waist and squeezing her knee in the way he knows makes her squirm.

“Oh my god,” she laughs, using her free hand to shove at him. “Do you _want_ to make it back to the house?” 

She glances over at Archie as she stops at a red light, and she finds his eyes on her. He smiles softly. “Did you miss it?”

“Riverdale?” Betty chews on the inside of her cheek in thought, glancing down at his hands settled down by his sides. She shrugs. “I don’t know. I missed you.”

Archie hums. “I missed you, too.”

She feels like she’s vibrating, or something – Archie’s eyes on her, Archie’s low voice in her ear, Archie’s hands on her...it’s something she’s missed, something she’s thought about more in the last six years than she ever has in her life, which is...saying a lot, considering. 

“Remember that shitty little diner we went to in Albany?” She doesn’t mean for the words to come out as she turns onto her street –  _ their  _ street, really – but they do. They’d met there, just once – halfway between Fort Drum and Yale, almost to the mile. They’ve never talked about it, but she knows he remembers without her having to ask. It wasn’t exactly a forgettable trip.

Archie slides his hand over hers on the gear shift, his fingers pressing lightly against her wrist. “Jack’s,” he chuckles, nodding. “I remember. I ordered a milkshake and it came out chunky.”

Betty winces. “Their fries were like...spaghetti, almost, they were so flimsy.”

“You ate the fries?”

“I mean I ate  _ one,  _ yeah. I had to see,” she shakes her head. “Definitely wasn’t worth it, though.”

“You’re braver than I am,” he laughs as Betty pulls into the driveway. She puts the car in park and turns to him, flipping her hand over on the gearshift, waiting for him to lace their fingers. He does it quickly enough, brushing his thumb against hers as he smiles at her, his eyes soft. “That was a fun trip,” he says, his voice barely above a whisper. “I’m sorry we didn’t do it again.”

“You couldn’t help getting  _ deployed,  _ Arch,” Betty shrugs, brushing it off. “It’s not like...it’s not like I didn’t know that.”

Archie nods. “I know, but I made you a promise...see you in a year, you know?”

Betty swallows. She lifts her gaze to meet his and shrugs her shoulder softly. “You’re seeing me now, aren’t you?” Archie’s thumb moves along her wrist, and she’s about to say something – she’s not sure what, exactly. Something about how after their terrible meal at that weird diner, they’d rented a hotel room and spent twenty-four hours with their clothes off and fingers on her skin. Something about how she’s spent the last six years trying to find the same feeling of his  _ hands  _ on her, and she hasn’t been able to replicate it, not even once. 

She’s about to say  _ something,  _ anything, really, but instead she hears a sharp tap on the window of her car and jumps, pulling her hand from Archie’s and wrenching herself around to see her mother, smiling down at the two of them. 

“Archie,” Alice’s voice is muffled by the car window, “it’s so great to see you.”

–

She’s fine as Archie walks into her bathroom with a fresh toothbrush from the linen closet, waving it at her. “The water in the guest bathroom is off, apparently,” Archie smiles at her in the mirror, turning on her tap and running the brush beneath it. “At least, that’s what your mom said. I didn’t want to try it and piss her off.”

“She’s a lot calmer, now,” Betty laughs, her own toothbrush hanging out of her mouth as she speaks. She hands him a tube of toothpaste, raising her brow at him in the mirror as she continues brushing her teeth, watching him. 

“Calmer doesn’t really sound like the right word,” he mumbles, and she reaches over and pinches his elbow. “Hey,” he laughs, yanking his arm away. “Easy on the elbows.”

“Oh,” Betty laughs, leaning over the sink and spitting, then rinsing her toothbrush and setting it down on the counter. “I’m sorry, did you develop sensitive  _ elbows  _ in the army?”

Archie frowns, his toothbrush between his lips, but doesn’t say anything. Betty slides up onto the counter, crossing her legs at the ankles. She swings her legs, raising her brows at him as he brushes his teeth and makes dumb faces at her, his brows furrowed. 

She lets herself take him in, even though she knows he’s watching her do it. She doesn’t care, really – she’s not as shy as she was at eighteen, and he’s...grown up. She deserves the chance to look at him. 

His jawline is sharper than it was six years ago, stubble forming on his chin in a way that screams  _ man.  _ His shoulders are broader along with his chest, and his muscles are more defined – she can see them even beneath his t-shirt. She lets her eyes wander downwards and she can’t see much beyond his pajama pants but her cheeks flush as he clears his throat. “Eyes up, private,” he says around his toothbrush, and she chokes out a laugh as she looks up at his face, knowing her cheeks are red.

“I’m no private,” she sticks her foot out and pokes her toes into his calf, raising her brow. “You can call me  _ agent,  _ if you want.”

Archie leans over the sink, spitting and rinsing his toothbrush before he stands back up, a bit closer to her than he was before. “Alright,” he says, his voice quiet. “Agent, then. Eyes where I can see ‘em.”

Betty furrows her brow at him. “They don’t teach you how to flirt in the Army, then,” she laughs softly. “Do they?”

Archie chuckles, reaching over and squeezing her arm softly before he takes a step back and turns on his heel. “Night, Agent Cooper,” he calls over his shoulder, leaving her in the glow of the bright white halogen bulbs. 

–

The first time she’s not fine, she’s drifting to sleep. Her room is too dark, too different than the bedroom she’s used to now. There are too many ghosts in here, she thinks – ghosts of her past, ghosts of her mistakes, something along those lines. She knows her sleep is going to be bad before she’s even under the blankets – her head feels too full, and without the lights and sounds of the city, she’s thrown off. There’s nothing to distract her mind, not really, from what it’s been running from.

Her dream plays out the way it usually does, at first. 

She’s being baited by the Trash Bag Killer, sent little notes, given little clues – it’s reminiscent of the way her father baited her when he was posing as the Black Hood, rather than the way the actual TBK had acted, which is how she knows it’s a dream right away. He leaves her a clue – an address that she has to crack with a cipher, something he knows she’ll get – and she figures it out quickly, plugging it into her GPS and making her way along the highway.

Only, this time, it leads her to Riverdale. It leads her to Pickens Park, where teenaged Archie had willingly hopped into an open coffin for her, where she’d closed it and covered him with dirt. She jumps out of her car and bolts towards the spot she knows they’ll be – and there he is, cut into bits, wrapped in black polyethylene and silver duct tape: his arms, his legs, his hands, his feet, his bright red hair sticking out of a bag that she can only assume holds his severed head. 

She feels her ears rushing, her heart aching, her head throbbing. Her throat goes dry as she screams and screams, until the Trash Bag Killer steps out from behind a tree and looms closer to her. “Archie,” she sputters. “You did this to  _ Archie,  _ how could you do this to Archie?”

“Betty,” she hears, but the killer’s mouth is shut. She squints.

_ “Archie,”  _ she cries, and her voice is weak. 

“Betty, I’m right here.”

She looks around, down on the ground, her eyes frantic and blurry. The dismembered parts of what remained of her best friend are missing, and she moves to duck down and find them when she feels herself falling smack into the open grave.

She jolts awake, her throat tight – she feels constricted, like there’s a weight holding her down. She tries to suck in a breath and the phantom smell of fresh, wet earth lingers in her nostrils. She sputters, trying to find her breath as she attempts to take stock of her surroundings, realizing the weight holding her down is someone else’s arms.

She tenses up, but the arms pull her tight against a chest and she feels herself relax a little. A familiar chest. A familiar smell. She blinks. “Betty,” Archie breathes, and she tilts her head up, her cheek brushing against his t-shirt as she looks up at him. “Hey, hey. You’re okay, Betts.”

“Archie,” she croaks, and her vision blurs. “Archie, I’m so sorry.”

“Hey,” he slides his hand over her back, pulling her towards him and pressing his face down against her hair. “What are you apologizing for?” Betty shakes her head and slides her arms around him, ignoring how heavy and lead-like they are. “You’re okay, I’m right here.”

Betty whimpers against him, burying her face into his shoulder. She usually doesn’t let herself cry after – she’s usually busy waking herself up and trying to calm herself down, trying to make herself forget, moving onto the next thing. 

This, though, had been different. This had been Archie.

She slides her hand up to his throat, her fingers pressing against the skin between his neck and his shoulder blade, absently checking for the telltale incision line TBK leaves on all of his victims. When she doesn’t find it, she moves her hands away and slips them beneath his shirt to press her palms against his bare back. “I’m fine,” she whispers, her voice wet. Archie nods. “You’re fine.”

“‘Course I’m fine,” he murmurs, pressing his lips to the crown of her head. “I’m with you, Betty. We’re safe with each other.” He holds onto her for a long while, and even though she quiets herself and stops her crying quickly enough, she figures she’ll let him keep his arms around her for as long as he wants. “What do you think,” he asks, his voice low, “about me sleeping here, tonight?”

“Arch,” she whispers, letting out a slow breath. She doesn’t know if he should, really. They haven’t spoken about...anything, not in years. She doesn’t think getting wrapped up in Archie is necessarily something she should  _ do,  _ right now.

“Just tonight,” he breathes. “So I don’t have bad dreams.”

Betty lets out a soft, choked laugh, then pulls him down against her pillows and slides one of her legs over his. He wraps his arms around her and situates them beneath her blankets, tucking her head under his chin. She can feel him smiling against her hair as she slides her hands up beneath his shirt again, tapping her fingers against his spine. He hums.

“Sweet dreams,” she whispers, and he squeezes her gently.

In an interesting turn of events, being back in Archie Andrews’ arms is the one thing that makes her feel  _ actually _ fine enough to sleep.

**Author's Note:**

> you can follow me on [twitter](https://twitter.com/bettycooopers) or [tumblr](https://bettycooopers.tumblr.com) if you feel like watching me break down in real time!


End file.
